Featured: Impact Voices

Opportunity Zone investors want impact. Let’s help them get it. A surprising number of real estate developers, venture capitalists and other Opportunity Zone investors are seeking to drive genuine social impact, say Lisa Green Hall and Jennifer Collins. “Firms are eager to ascertain the efficacy of the legislation, attract capital from impact players, engage community voices in the process and … include social outcomes in return calculations,” write the two fellows of Georgetown University’s Beeck Center, in a guest post on ImpactAlpha. “The uptake of impact management will be boosted by easily accessible tools and straightforward guidance for those investors new to impact investing principles.”

Signs of gentrification. Common signs of gentrification include higher than average income growth rates and growth in the white share of the population. Very few of the Opportunity Zones nationwide exhibit such signs, according to new data from the Economic Innovation Group, which helped develop the tax policy. An exception is New York, home to the largest number of tracts with signs of gentrification. In contrast, most of the designated zones “are facing enormous socioeconomic challenges,” says EIG.

Sweeteners. One way Chicago and Cook County can lever Opportunity Zones for community benefit: buy up and resell vacant land at a low cost to Opportunity Funds willing to meet specified community needs, according to a new brief from the Urban Institute.

Dealflow: Follow the Money

Circularity Capital raises £60 million for European waste-reduction ventures. The Edinburgh-based private equity firm invests in growth-stage European businesses targeting waste-reduction and the “circular economy.” The fund has invested in Winnow, a data firm that targets food waste in the hospitality sector, and Grover, which reduces electronic waste with technology subscription services for consumers and large companies. The firm reached a first close for its debut fund in March 2017. The fund’s investor roster includes AXA Investment Managers, BNP Paribas Fortis, Henkel, Philips, and several family offices. Read on.

Manitoba social impact bond will finance doulas for indigenous mothers. The Canadian province is seeking to raise $3 million from private investors to support at-risk indigenous mothers in childbirth and mothering. Manitoba’s pilot project aims to match 200 indigenous mothers with doulas, or birth coaches, to reduce the risk of children entering the state’s child welfare system. The social impact bond is Canada’s fifth, and second focusing on at-risk mothers. Here’s more.

Seize the opportunity. Ceniarth is recruiting an investment officer and investment manager in London… The Mulago Foundationis looking for an investment principal in San Francisco… Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio & Fellowship team is hiring a program associate and other roles in New York.